Online Sailing Lessons

The start of a series of lessons and articles on sailing. For example Man overboard procedure with more articles to come for study on ASA keel boat 101 and US Sailing 101. There will be animations, sketches and flash cards to assist you with your course. The man over board drill will help with a key practice exercise essential to basic Man overboard procedures keelboat training.

DIY Articles

I’ve posted a few articles on DIY refit for a boat; these are mostly based on my ongoing experiences in getting a boat up to cruising state, which still in progress but then a boat always is. Some were more successful than others but we learn as we go along. Articles include a relatively successful attempt to make custom bow thrusters out of a pair of trolling motors. The repowering of a boat (also see the boat speed calculator) and some thoughts on the hybrid electric boat option. A more successful creation of bow sprit for a catamaran to fly a screecher sail, allowing it to sail much closer to the wind. The planning and designing of a hard Bimini. Please note I’m no professional at boat refits and there are many different skill sets involved I’ve figured things out as I go. If you have any suggestions on articles or would like to guest post an article on your site please see the contact page.

Boat Speed

I created the boat hull speed calculator, which has been surprisingly popular, based on some publicly available formulas I researched while trying to figure out what size engine and propeller to use in re-powering my catamaran. I was surprised to see most of the information on this subject was fragmented and not very easy to understand or available. It occurred to me I could combing my programming knowledge with the knowledge I gained in this project and from speaking to a number of sources to create the calculator, free for public use, by anyone attempting to re-power a boat or anyone interested in the characteristics of boat speed. I used this calculator in my boat engine replacement and it was right on the money and I have received good feedback from visitors. Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments. There are a number of supporting pages created for the calculator that are worth reading.

SL Ratio - which is of primary importance for displacement vessel speed